Mr Patrick Campbell is group chairman of the Campbell Bewley Group
In many ways it was a capital-friendly Budget and business people will be happy.
But there is one thing it has seriously failed to do and that is improve the position of low earners. I think it is a shame for those people.
A cut of two per cent in the lower band is not something anyone is going to get excited about.
In Bewleys at the moment, 20 per cent of our workers are from Spain. That is because we cannot get Irish people to do the work. They won't do the work because they will be excessively taxed and this means taking up a job is just not worth it.
In our overseas operations, we see employees being paid the same gross pay as our Irish employees, but the difference between their net pay is alarming.
No one is going to complain about the social welfare increases, but why are we concentrating on paying people to stay idle, when we could be using that money to make it worthwhile for them to take up a job?
I personally welcome the decision to lower the standard rate of corporation tax and it will no doubt help this company.
But if it was a choice of taking action on that and reducing the burden on the lower paid, I would take the latter option.
As an employer, I can only say to the Minister that there are serious problems in getting staff in Dublin and other areas and his budget will not change this very much.
The incentives the Minister has announced for taking on long term unemployed people are appreciated, but the problem is getting people to the point where they want to take up a job at all.
The things that some of us welcome, like capital gains tax reductions, are of virtually no relevance to lower income people. The balance has been struck wrongly.